i had an extra long labour day weekend because of my work schedule and since we’d planned to have a bunch of friends up to the cottage that weekend anyway (the cottage is about a 3 hour drive away from here), we figured we’d make an entire week of it. as luck would have it, the weather didn’t really cooperate. it was cold and rainy all weekend long. after our friends left and we enjoyed the one sunny/warm day there was going to be, jon and i hightailed it to his parents’ farm, about 30 minutes away from their cottage, for the rest of the week. although the farm isn’t home for me, it sure feels like it.

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we didn’t have the relaxing week we originally planned (thanks, weather), it was wonderful to be at the farm anyway, as always. we ate loads of good super fresh, local food, worked hard at putting veggies away in the freezer for the winter [a great big pot of ultra veggified pasta sauce (which i'm calling my 500 metre sauce, since everything we put in it came from within 500 metres of the kitchen we cooked it in!, 2 gallons of crushed/stewed tomatoes for making chili with this week (and oh what chili we made this week!!! at least 17 quarts put away in the freezer), and a bushel of red peppers chopped up and frozen]. we went to a small town country fair, played with kittens, watched movies (and napped) and it was good.

i think this photo (taken on my iphone with the super fun ShakeIt app) really captures the beauty of the country (big open blue sky), fall, and the colourful energy of the fair. shortly after i took this, i proceeded to eat a big bag of cotton candy. ohhhhh was my tummy ever not happy about that! (it was certainly enjoyable to eat, however). i’d never been happier to see vegetables again.

we came back to regular-old-at-home life for a week, but come monday, the craziness begins again. i am flying off to the great city of winnipeg for a work conference and then immediately after i come back, i have a half marathon to run! my training over the last few weeks has been pretty abysmal (i blame the weather again.) i’m sure i’ll make it through, even if not super quickly! i’ve been to winnipeg once before, but only very briefly (i flew into their airport and had lunch at a quizno’s before driving out northwest to a wedding. not so exciting) so i’m hoping to have a bit of exploration time.

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in other, more creative news, i have been working on a lot of projects, art and otherwise. sadly nothing concrete to share yet though! in august i got an email about a super fun sounding workshop that one of my favourite bloggers (elise) was running on how to make minibooks (like a scrapbook but on a smaller physical scale {hence the “mini”} and with a much more casual concentrated or super stretched out approach). my dining table is covered in all kinds of fun new supplies so i can start making and doing. the workshop was 2 weeks long and i learned tons of neat tricks and ideas.

also, another favourite blogger (kal) is running a different kind of workshop right now, which i am also signed up for. it is called “nurture your creativity and be bulletproof”. i’ve been through a bunch of stuff at work over the past year and a half that i really could have been a bit more bulletproof for (who couldn’t!) so i figured the class would be more than useful just for that. the nurturing my creativity bit is a bonus and pairs perfectly with elise’s class that just wrapped up. i am really looking forward to the next 4 weeks!

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last month i finally joined the twenty-first century and ditched my ultra crappy super old pay as you go plan cellphone, which had a battery that only lasted a day (without use) and no other redeeming features (which meant that it was usually left at home, battery uncharged, with no paid time on it! not so useful). i bit the bullet and got an iphone4 (expensive but SO LOVELY), which i guess i was lucky enough to score right when they were released to canada – everyone is out of stock now. having the internet in my pocket has made things so fun and easy! i plan to do a lot more on the fly adventure blogging, once i find a good app for this. any recommendations? i’m signed up for posterous, so i might go that route, but it would have to be separate from Training to Live here. the wordpress app has left me unimpressed (photos only at the end of the text? no thanks!).

other favourite apps so far:

teuxdeux (amazing amazing. i went through a whole bunch of to do type apps before i settled on this one. i love that you can have multiple accounts. and that it automatically pushes everything you didn’t do today onto tomorrow. i also love that you can go back and see what you did on any given day. and that you can assign tasks into any day in the future). also it automatically syncs with the web version, so you can enter everything on your computer at home and have it with you on the go.

doodle jump – super fun and a great game to play when you’re staying put for a bit. i just downloaded tetris for an alternative for my upcoming trips.

shakeIt – just like your old favourite polaroids

mobile banking

mindbody (so i know what yoga classes are being offered where, RIGHT NOW). i’ve been missing from yoga since june and i’ve made a pledge to myself to try and get to class at least once or twice a week.

starbucks (mostly to seek out free wifi. when i was in chicago last month and didn’t have roaming data, i discovered that just being in the vicinity of a starbucks would give me the internet. it was awesome. plus, you never know when you’ll need a pumpkin spice fix! this is good for being in new cities). also, for newbs to the ‘bucks, you can create your own drinks!

alarm clock pro – my alarm clock that i’ve used for the last 5 years recently stopped working (sort of) and i have since been trying to find a good replacement that wouldn’t set me back a ton of money. i came up short. until the day i decided to try out alarm clock pro, for the low low price of 0.99$, it is everything i’ve ever wanted in an alarm clock without a) having to spend a ton of money and b) adding more crap to my night stand. perfect.

and of course, tweetdeck. i still heart twitter!

what apps do you go to?

sunday was spent having brunch with a few lovely ladies at a vegetarian restaurant in the fashion district (not kensington market, sadly i was mistaken) at a great meetup that angela organized. the restaurant (fressen) was only just so-so – the food was a little meh, pretty expensive for what it was, and the service was just ok. i’m not sure i’d go back, though i’m not really their target demographic, being carnivorous and all. the company was far more enjoyable than the food, and i really loved getting to chat with people that i already knew i had things in common with.

(picture from Angela’s camera – I failed to take actual photographs at the event)

Kristin, Kristen, Christina, Steph, Kelly, Nienke, Morgan, Alex, Julie, Karly, Jaclyn, Noelle – thanks for a great sunday morning!

After brunch, I headed off to MEC for a bit of shopping. (Clearly i am not fashionable or trendy enough for the Queen West district, but I do appreciate a good cycling jersey, some new running tanks and a season’s supply of sharkies!). Passed this condo-to-be on the way

so ridiculous!!

The work week was not super eventful. My manager did announce that she is going away for a year to do a different job for a while which is surprising, exciting (for her) and sad (for us, as she is an amazing manager). I also discovered that someone that I have been dealing with over the phone and through emails for the last year and a half, under the very clear impression that the person was male is actually female! How embarrassing! Luckily I never sent her any letters addressed to a Mr! (At least I hope I didn’t…. I kind of don’t want to go back to check, just in case)

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I finally ordered my vibram sprints! Ashley and Kelsey have been raving about them for months and I’ve been waffling on if I could pull them off. I finally gave in and put in my order. I wasn’t able to try them on first (MEC had none in stock), so hopefully the size is right. I should have them in a few weeks.

squeeeee. I also ordered a couple pairs of injinji socks in case it is still chilly when they arrive. i couldn’t decide between the colour above and the bright blue/grey like ashley’s, but they were out of stock in the blue/grey, so i thought it must be fate and got the aboves!

i am recommitting to this blogging thing. again. promise.

here’s what happened in february:

-i went to an awesome book event for one of my newest favourite books, that i have talked about here already: the happiness project. a conversation with the author, the amazing gretchen rubin, and heather from indigo.

i had just gotten to almost the end of my library copy by the time the book event happened, and i knew i wanted to buy my own copy. luckily this was the perfect time because i could have a chat with gretchen and get my copy signed! excuse the terrible pictures! it wasn’t me.

i am taking part in the 2010 happiness challenge, which comes with a monthly theme and weekly things to do (described in 2 minute videos by gretchen, every monday). so far we’ve done things like tackle nagging tasks, fight right, stop expecting praise and appreciation (the hardest), hug more, kiss more, touch more (my favourite). i can feel myself becoming a more pleasant person.

-i started seriously training for around the bay (which is in 21 days!!!) 30k race i am doing at the end of this month.

i’ve gone on 2+ hour training runs, i have done strength training a couple times each week, i’ve started interval training (yasso 800s!) and i have gone swimming once a week, every week since i last posted that i was going to try and get back into swimming.

our winter has been mild – perfect for outdoor runs but not so perfect for snowshoeing. we only have gotten out once so far (i fear this will be our only snowshoe adventure of 2010), but it was epic. 2.5 hours on the mountain biking trails of waterloo. my muscles ached the following two days!

today i’m up to a 21-25k run. i’ve got one more distance week left, and then i cut back in preparation of my taper before the race. edited to add- i ended up being out for 3 hours this morning. brutal. my knees hurt. happily i probably won’t have to do any more ridiculously long runs this year because this 30k race is the longest i am signing up for. everything else is half marathon and below.

soon i will start spending a bit more time on my bike, as the following race is the cyclocross st george to ancaster, where i will ride 35k through mud, rail trails, roads, single track and farm land.

-i went to a wake for a 16 year old who lost a battle with cancer. it was decidedly one of the most sad things i have done. my heart broke for his parents; no one should ever have to go through that.

-i got to interview and help select our summer intern for work. this was particularly exciting, as we went back to my alma mater for the interviews AND i was that summer intern myself, not too many years ago. we didn’t get our first pick, but i am pretty happy with the person who will be showing up in may. it definitely was an experience that made me feel old though!

-i went to a custom bike shop with jon to get his new bike spec-ed out, measured and designed. it was sooo cool! i wanted to share some pictures, but when we arrived, i discovered that my battery was completely out of juice maybe i’ll go back when we pick up the finished product and get some good shots. custom bikes are sweet, but i am definitely not enough of a for real biker to justify getting one, nor would i fully appreciate all the features. i would love a custom paint job though!

-last night, for the first time ever, i drove jon’s standard car home (about 12km) all by myself with no supervision – my maiden voyage. it was a little harrowing at times, since i’m a pretty new driver to begin with, and i’m still learning how to operate the standard vehicle. i stalled only once, drove in the wrong gear once or twice, but, all in all, it wasn’t too bad and i did not crash or die! someday soon i will get more comfortable doing this.

-i proofread jon’s mechanical engineering master’s thesis on deep drawing of warm formed aluminum. “what?” you say. yeah, that’s what i said too. after going through the 100+ pages a few times, combing carefully for missing commas and misplaced subordinating conjunctions, i still don’t really know what deep drawing is all about. that’s ok with me.

-i’m working on my mighty life list, inspired by maggie and karen. i’ll post it when i’m done. so far everything on the list (i’m up to #28 so far) is kind of epic. i think i need a few things that i can get started on right now. ideas?

-i pulled the ice cream maker out of hibernation for a batch of homemade cookies and cream (david lebovitz’s philidelphia vanilla with crushed oreos swirled in at the end). let me tell you, i have missssed ice cream. since we stopped buying it at the store, when i removed the freezer bowl from our freezer, our connection to the creamy cold treat was severed. i’m happy to have it back in my life.

-tomorrow i’m going to my first ever blog meetup (aside from the healthy living summit, which i guess was sort of blog meetup like) that angela is organizing in kensington market, a super cute area of toronto. i’m excited to meet new people, make some new friends (hopefully) and spend some time exploring the city. the weather is supposed to be gorge!

whew. that was long.

augh. all my pictures from the dance party the other day are blurry and terrible. my camera does not do well with low light situations. i give up!

the conference last week was incredible. i am energized and excited to go back to work and forge ahead. i met some very unique people (one guy who sails from nova scotia to bermuda once a year, a few people who have worked on the coast guard ships, people who work in the arctic) and spent quality time bonding with my colleagues who are stationed in a few different cities around the province. we do so much work with each other, and yet i’ve only met some of them once or twice in much more formal settings. socializing with them, having drinks together in someone’s hotel room, etc makes me able to relate to them more. instead of being just someone on the other end of the phone or the email, they become real. human. i feel like i know them a little better and thus can work with them more effectively (i’m much more willing to be patient and forgiving to someone who is a friend than just some guy i don’t really know, you know?). so i’m pumped.

i had a great idea for christmas cards that might not materialize because i waited too long! this year, we might have to resort to regular store bought cards, and next year we will do something cool. that’ll teach me to not procrastinate!

i have to plan out all the baking i need to do before we leave on our holiday road trip. i am down to 19 days left – guess i better get moving. do you have any favorites? i think i will definitely maybe be doing the following:

• peanut butter fudge (for my sister)
• peppermint candy canes (martha stewart) ?
• some sort of sugar cookie
• truffles?
• a chocolate cookie (also from martha)  
• regular fudge

what are your favourites? i’m always looking for new ideas and recipes!

the royal york holiday tree, lit on friday afternoon by the cast of the sound of music! i’m sorry i had to miss it.

this is where i am spending my days at the conference. the royal york lobby and facilities are pretty nice. i checked out my friend’s hotel room this afternoon to use her internet to send a quick email, and i saw that the rooms are just regular. nothing special. on the small side, even, and no flat screen tvs like many of the other (equivalently priced) hotels around here. but still. impressive lobby. i got to watch them assemble a giant christmas tree this morning (picture tomorrow?). i had only planned to go to the first two days of the conference, but i was so impressed and excited about more discussion and idea sharing that i am going back for day 3 tomorrow!

my operation beautiful note. i am not sure how long it was up for; when i returned in the afternoon, all the notes i put up (several) were gone. oh well.

this video will make you super happy, even if you haven’t been following along on the blog as long as i have!

although it’s not thanksgiving here, i’ve got the urge for pumpkin pie! i roasted my last pumpkin in the oven this evening. tomorrow i’ll get the crust ready. saturday will be faux-thanksgiving. there is always so much to be thankful for and an excuse for super seasonal fall foods is always welcome.

you know you’re a runner when you feel like some candy, but all you’ve got are sharkies!

off to watch a little tv!

i got home pretty late today, about an hour and a half after normal (since the conference i’m going to is all the way downtown and ends almost an hour after i normally leave work). i got home, microwaved my supper (chilli from the freezer, with some tortilla chips) and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening watching tv (lie to me) and playing shift. SOOOO unproductive. i did not do yoga. i did not cross anything off my to do list (not even any fun things!). i was basically just a useless bump on a log. the day was pretty tiring though – networking and talking to people and asking questions and listening to presentations is much more work than i thought.

the conference is going really well. i promise pictures for tomorrow! (and maybe an OB note or two?) it’s in a super swanky hotel. i’m kind of sad that i don’t get to stay there overnight, but it doesn’t make sense since i’m only an hour away by subway and bus. it did mean i had to skip out on dinner with the group though. i knew i had tasty supper at home, and i would have gotten home far too late and probably would have been grumpy tomorrow! did a bit of christmas shopping before i hopped on the subway home. now have 1.5 people crossed off my list (add to the previous 0.5 + 0.5 + 1) and the situation doesn’t seem so bad! i love how christmassy everything feels downtown now. maybe i will hit up the eaton centre tomorrow! (good thing tomorrow is a getting paid day. hahaha)

many of the people at the conference are francophones and so the organizers hired professional translators to translate on the fly. we have headsets and any time someone is speaking in a language you don’t know, you can just put the headset on and listen to the translation! i am pretty impressed. the translations are not perfect (there is a bit of a time lag, though just a few seconds) but it is really nice to have. ordinarily, the francos just kind of have to either get by with what little english they can understand and talk amongst each other for clarification or hope that the presenters are bilingual and can answer their questions in the language of their choice. thumbs up to professional translation! i’m sure it’s expensive though. today i listened to some translation just for fun – the best is when it’s Q+A and the audience asks questions to a panel and the panel responds. it sounds like the translator dude is having a conversation with himself. his voice inflections are also pretty amusing and don’t necessarily match the way you’d normally say something. (there are two people translating. one is significantly better than the other)

i’m going to continue my bump on a log evening up in bed with the latest little mosque on the prairie. sometimes there really is no better way to end the day than with some quality racial stereotyping breaking television. sounds like jon’s root canal went ok today: “toof doesn’t really hurt”. this is good news! dental trips rarely end well.

cyclocross!

on saturday, we went to go watch our friend jeff in a cyclocross race at a local conservation area. i’ve been wanting to go see a race for ages, but we just haven’t had the time. when jeff told us about a race in the city (at one of our favorite hiking locales) on halloween, i knew it would be fun times.cyclocross is kind of a crazy sport. the bikes are road-like, but much more rugged. they run knobby tires because the majority of the course is grass or dirt (with only the occassional bit of paved area). the courses have run ups and barriers, where you have to dismount, throw your bike over your shoulder, and keep moving. races in ontario run from september to beginning of december, with 1-2 races per weekend (insane! i can’t imagine racing that much). cyclocross was originally designed to extend the roadie season into the fall in europe. it’s quite big in belgium. the ontario cross scene is still small, but it seems to be gaining in popularity.
when i was shopping around for my commuter bike last spring, i was looking at road bikes and hybrids. jon pointed out that a cyclocross bike was exactly what i was looking for. i wanted the sleekness of a road bike, with the drop bars for going fast down hills, but something a little more heavy duty. the average hybrid is just a mountain bike with 26″ wheels that are slightly slick- wouldn’t be useful for doing much offroading or racing (in tris or distance cyclocross races like paris to ancaster). after a few test rides, i found that indeed, the cyclocross was light enough to be fast (i mean, you have to be able to pick it up and run with it) but still durable enough to deal with the runaround of potholes and poorly paved toronto streets, so that’s what i bought. i never actually had any intention of doing any *real* cyclocross racing – races are about 1 hour long, on a course of a few kilometres. you do as many laps as you can. the winner is the first person to come in at the end- i see it as similar to a 10k run effort. now that i’ve been to an actual race, i might just be reconsidering! it’s much less dangerous than i thought – especially on slower courses like this one. the field is more spread out and there isn’t the same potential for crashing as in road racing. granted the race we went to, on halloween, costumes encouraged and prizes for winners in the form of beer and cash, was a little more laid back than most, it seems like a fairly casual, not crazy competitive sport. i think i like it. there is a lot of getting dirty though. you can see one of many mud puddles in the below pictures. i took a bunch of video of the riders splashing through which i will eventually find time to edit. maybe next year i’ll find a fun beginner race to do, since i already have the gear!

the course was very tight. there were tons of really sharp turns, but other than that, it did not seem like a super technical race (which is what keeps me away from mountain biking). the costumes were great and it was nice to see people getting into the spirit of halloween. jon and i squeezed in a quick hike up part of the niagara escarpment before the start.

i was almost relieved that monday came after crazy weekend #3. i need a weekend from my weekends and although work is as far from relaxing as possible, it was a welcome change.

the boy and our houseguest arrived really late on friday night after going to see a fellow cyclists’ band play (i sadly had to miss this because i was in the wrong city). i woke up early for my weekly long run. 16km was the plan. the forecast said it wouldn’t start raining until “late morning.” i left the house at 7:30 and figured i’d be safe. i briefly considered taking my cellphone and decided against it.

8km in, at the halfway point, the sky opened up! i did my turn around and RAN. like the wind. i was seriously flying. and getting seriously wet. there’s nothing like thunder and lightening to kick your ass and make you faster. at the 13km mark, 3km away from home, i saw a familiar car pull over and stop for me. even though i didn’t really tell him where i was going to be, jon came and found me. i felt warm and fuzzy inside, even though i was cold and wet on the outside. it was a really good run anyway though. i’m almost sad i didn’t get the last 3km in (but not sad enough to not take my shining armour rescue). my ipod wasn’t as happy, though. i thought that after her first encounter with the h2o last fall (after an accidental trip through the washer that she miraculously survived) that maybe skye (or robin) liked being wet! i hoped for another miracle, but…no deal. i did manage somehow to get my run synced to the nike+ website though, which i am quite pleased at. replacement nano is in the mail, currently on a whirlwind vacation (started off the morning in lantau island, going to disney and checking out the pink dolphins and is currently in anchorage alaska, probably doing some dog sledding. i’m not sure what will be next!) we should be reunited by friday. apparently i manage to epically kill my ipods (first one went through the washer and dryer, then died. second one went swimming in the rain. i should take bets on how this next one will meet its end)

sunday morning was another early one, as we had to leave the house before 7 for jon’s 9:30 am race. someone miscalculated driving distances or maybe just forgot to account for the fact that 7am traffic on sunday morning does not exist, but we got to the conservation park at 7:40. it was chilly! by 10ish, it started to warm up and i enjoyed hanging out in the feedzone in my camping chair, giving jon fresh bottles and cheering him on. even though the course was pretty wet and muddy, he still managed to do awesomely in the single speed category, coming in 2nd out of 21.

that’s my boy! i was sad he took off his sweet jersey before the award ceremony. hopefully he’ll get some more podium action later this summer.

jon and i spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon chilling out in the sunshine, watching our friend race (and feeding him) and playing with our other friends’ adorable new puppy. we came home and bbqed, drank beer and ate some homemade ice cream. that’s what good days are made of. i did send my mother an email, but besides that we didn’t really do anything special for mother’s day, since both of our moms were far away. (i have gifts for my mom when she’s here next month). i cut myself a nice bouquet of tulips and other wild flowers from the garden because even though i’m not a mom, i do a lot of mom-like things and i like flowers.

just when i thought work couldn’t get any busier, BAM! insane doesn’t even begin to describe it! plus one of my coworkers is going on his early honeymoon for the next week and a half and my supervisor has been ordered by her doctor to only work from home (she has kind of a high risk pregnancy and the next few weeks are supposedly critical). i have a bunch of new responsibilities and the opportunity to shine. keep your fingers crossed that things don’t go the other way.

it’s only wednesday and so far my week has been filled with at least 14 days worth of awesome.

1) two days totally off from work, and at least one but maybe two (or three) more days of nice, quiet empty office, perfect for me to get tons done.

2) booked vacation tickets to colorado and have a hotel room in a place that looks like a castle and also has excellent reviews on the interwebs. i plan to pretend to be a princess and be rescued from a dragon at least once.

3) extra extra good news at work. will discuss more later.

4) FUN package from marianne for winning the coconut BSI. not only did i get two lovely big bags of the absolutely amazing coconut mango lime biscotti (they will be gone before i know it – guess i’ll have to learn to make them myself), she also threw in an awesome bar of fair trade + organic chocolate (pineapple, coconut, banana & lime. how appropriate!) and a super cute card. thanks marianne! i have decided that the world definitely needs more mailed baked goods.

my tempo run this evening was good. i’m down to only being 2 seconds per km slower than my target pace which is completely negligible. i am happy about that. feels like i’m getting back on track, after the bike race. tomorrow morning, i’ll do a swim workout to give my knees a break before the weekend’s 11 mile run.

and before i hit the pillows, i will make note of a few more awesome things i found this week:

- yoga is yummy! *love* yogadownloads has a new rival in my life.

- live simple – bobbi’s challenge after my own heart for you to greenify yourself

and finally, the craziest bag that i absolutely *must* get for the biker in my life. i see it making our race mornings smooth and easy.

take good care!

even though it’s the last full week of the fiscal year and there is all kinds of crazy nonsense going on at work and we didn’t have the most lovely weather, i am still having a great week!

lots of good:
- fun package in the mail
- a great job interview
- a weekend road trip to look forward to
- a sad but very inspiring retirement party at work (we are losing a legend)
- a few quality runs. the training plan is hard, in fact, i’m not quite fast enough yet but i’m working on it! today’s tempo run wasn’t as good as the intervals but i’m still happy
- some new (to me) awesome tunes (discovered through working on the below project. who knew punk would be so fun to dance around to?) the album is indestructible by rancid
- i have a batch of potentially delicious tuffies, waiting to be enjoyed with some tea
- i finished the fun bike video that i’ve been working on. enjoy!

(blerg! wordpress does not embed vimeo and youtube is obnoxious. so. i’m just leaving the link here. i encourage you to check it out because it’s fun fun fun!)